Defining homelessness is politically charged these days. A word used 20 years ago to evoke compassion for the poor is increasingly accepted as shorthand for a grab bag of undesirables - the deranged, disheveled or destitute. Yet the same word applies to the largely unseen women and children who make up more than a third of the homeless in Colorado Springs.

. . . The homeless usually bear their losses in silence, their misfortune unreported and their offenders unknown.

Defining homelessness is politically charged in New York these days. A word used 20 years ago to evoke compassion for the poor is increasingly accepted as shorthand for a grab bag of undesirables, the deranged, disheveled or destitute. Yet the same word applies to the largely unseen women and children who make up almost two-thirds of homeless shelter residents in New York City.

According to the bio on her blog we found through Google cache (she's set her blog to private and deleted her Facebook, LinkedIn and Google profiles), Hailey Mac Arthur is a second-year student at the University of Florida College of Journalism who has also interned at the Gainesville Sun. Back in April she conducted a hilariously salacious interview with Gay Talese over the phone and wrote about it on her blog. Here are some of the highlights: